If Liam Plunkett plays in the next ODI after being whistled over to Australia from the England Lions tour in West Indies he will be the 19th player picked in the space of six matches. Ajmal Shahzad has tweaked his hamstring, Chris Tremlett has a side-strain, Tim Bresnan has a torn calf, Graeme Swann a knacked knee, and Stuart Broad is still working his way back to fitness after his stomach injury. The side seem to have stored up a lot of bad luck during the Test series.

And yet, surprisingly, it is not the bowlers who have been letting the team down. Jonathan Trott aside, the batsmen have made three fifties between them, one apiece for Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss and Matt Prior. Australia may be ranked as the best one-day team in the world, but England have gifted them wickets in this competition.

Would it be too simplistic to suggest that, because of the injuries, the bowlers are far fresher than the batsmen, having played fewer matches over the course of the winter? Pietersen, Strauss, Trott, Prior, Collingwood and Bell have barely had a moment to catch their breath.

On an optimistic note, Rob Bagchi writes: "Despite his travails, Eoin Morgan is the punchy heir to Neil Fairbrother."

On the little Lancashire genius - middle name Harvey - Bagchi writes:

For almost the whole of the 90s England tried to redress this imbalance by packing the side with all-rounders who often failed to repay the selectors' faith with either bat or ball. Dermot Reeve was the pioneer and he played well during the 1992 World Cup but he was followed by Neil Smith, Mike Watkinson, Matthew Fleming, Mark Alleyne and Vince Wells in a policy of bits-and-pieces über alles that left England looking conservative and vulnerable, like taking on Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia's six-shooters with a catapult and a handful of cat litter.

Fairbrother did his best to compensate for such a flawed strategy and his batting average during the 18 winning run chases he helmed in his career, 81.14, shows how big a contribution he made in runs and his ability to be there to deliver the coup de grâce.

Bet you don't look good on the dancefloor

When Darren Gough and Mark Ramprakash secured back-to-back Strictly Come Dancing victories in 2005-06, we dared to dream. There lay before us the prospect of an entire generation of success for ageing county pros, both in the ballroom and on the rink. But this priceless opportunity has been tragically wasted.

Alarm bells began to ring as early as 2009, when Phil Tufnell finished a disappointing eighth in Strictly. And now this: the indignity of a professional cricketer finishing eleventh in a fully-accredited dancing contest.